As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Some information handling systems, including computer systems, support hot plug functionality for various hot plug components, external devices or peripherals, such as memory cards, PCI devices, or disk drives, for example. Hot plug, which is often referred to as hot swap, refers to the process of removing or adding a device to a system without halting, or “hanging,” the system. In particular situations, hot plug may refer to adding a device to, or removing a device from, a bus while transactions involving other devices or system components are occurring over the bus.
In order to add a hot plug device to or remove a hot plug device from an information handling system, the system may need to perform a hot plug operation, which may include a series of functions, including a number of system management interrupts (SMIs). Due to such SMIs, a system can typically only handle one hot plug operation at a time. When multiple hot plug operations are requested at the same time, the system may hang or other errors may result.